Navigate:

A ban to appointed senators?

Text Size

In the aftermath of Blago-gate, several lawmakers are saying enough is enough with governors and their hand-picked senators.
AP Photo

In the aftermath of Blago-gate, several lawmakers are saying enough is enough with governors and their hand-picked senators.

This week a bipartisan group of lawmakers is introducing a constitutional amendment that would end gubernatorial appointment of senators require direct election of senators to fill vacancies.

The flood of appointments to fill vacancies after the November election, “have driven home that it should be in the voters’ hands,” said Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, one of the co-sponsors of the legislation. Feingold has three House Republican cosponsors – Lamar Smith of Texas, David Dreier of California and James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin.

Feingold said he hopes to hold a Judiciary subcommittee hearing on March 10. Four new senators – Roland Burris of Illinois, Michael Bennett of Colorado, Ted Kaufman of Delaware, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York – have been appointed by sitting governors.

But Feingold realizes he’s got a rocky road in on this issue among fellow senators.

“Some are not comfortable with it because they were appointed,” Feingold said.

I think it's imperative that this bill be enacted and quick! We've got a runaway Congress and runaway White House using this porkulus package to reward states. ACORN will get a huge share to ensure it gets out there and continues to bring in the fraudulent vote. Meanwhile, the 2010 Census is being taken from Commerce to be shared with Rahm Emmanuel. Governors will be beholden to these liberal spendthrifts who'll have the power to gerrymander the entire country their way, and you think they should continue to have the power to stack their membership???!!!

Perhaps these lawmakers should also include in this amendment time limits for Congress similar to that of President.

Wow. Take a look at your Constitution, Buckwheat. According to Art. I, § 3 (part of which was replaced by the 17th Amendment), senators were chosen by State legislatures unless a vacancy occurred during a legislative recess, in which case the governor made an appointment until the legislature reconvened. The default position of the 17th Amendment is that states hold direct elections. State legislatures, by using another clause in that amendment, however, have taken that authority away from the people and given it to the governors. People should be putting pressure on their Statehouses to make a change. That's far more likely to fix the problem than a constitutional amendment.

The states are where this should be taken care of not in the fereral government as should the election of a state AG.They should all be elected to avoid the possibilty of looking like they are deferring to their governors.I think when we have good governors things like what Rod B may have tried to do would not happen.Look at the other appointiees.No problems there.IL. was right they did not have the money to run an election at this time and unless these three men who i have to assume are republicans pay for them it is a moot point right now.Maybe they could come up with the money for the staes to hold these elections

There are trillions of dollars available for bailouts and spending packages, but not enough money to hold elections? Put the power back into the hands of the people. Our politicians have proven they are not trustworthy.

State legislatures are hyper-partisan -- more so than Congress, in many cases -- and the 17th Amendment was put forth, at least in part, as an answer to drastically delayed Senate apointments by state legislators. That's all well and good, but the effect of the 17th Amendment was also to remove states' representation in Washington. The Senate used to be able to fight federal legislation that would potentially infringe too much on states' rights. Now, that check is missing.

I agree with letting voters pick their elected officials, but Senators were not originally meant to represent individuals, but rather the political state as a whole. Not only does the 17th Amendment strip away the original clause's purpose, it also undermines the bedrock of federalism that this nation was founded upon. Forget the New Deal... small government advocates need only to look at this amendment to see how our federal government was allowed to grow so big and powerful.

As for the issue of governor-appointed Senators, that's an issue that, rightly so, Congress left up to the states to decide. Blagojevich was allowed to appoint Burris because his state's legislature didn't say the process should take place in any other manner. Anyone with concerned about this process in their own state sould start by contacting their state senator/ representative.

I have never read such nonsense. These are temporary appointments, the voters have their say. Its not like these folks are going to be voting to send the US to war, oh wait the jerks who got elected did that. It's not like these guys are going to vote to approve spending budgets that spend billions of money we do not have, on a regular basis, oh wait the ones elected already did that. It's not like these temporary folks are going to sit back and let the weapons spending occur for programs that do little to help the troops but put big bucks in contractors pockets, oh wait the elected ones did that. It's not like the voters have made sterling choices either. Voters have continued to elect certain Senators and Congressman who are half dead, under a cloud of criminal activity or are bigot's and idiots.